Another Prince Animage cover!
There was just a WHOLE LOT of interview for this feature, so as usual I just noted particularly interesting parts…

Akiyama Katsuhito (Director), Kamakura Yumi (Assistant Director) interview
This interview took place after completion of GO episode 45.
✿ The directors take extra care to make the anime version of Inazuma Eleven a unique experience from the games.
✿ Kamakura Yumi is mostly in charge of making each character stand out as individuals. So fine details such as when and at what level a person cries. In this case, there’s Shindou, whether he’s letting the tears go down his cheeks or they’re just welling up in his eyes. There’s also Tsurugi in ep 41, which Kamakura put special detail into.
✿ Subcharacters: Kamakura wonders what happened to Kuroki (lol). Also wonders what happens to everyone in Fifth Sector after it’s been dismantled, although she thinks Senguuji would probably transfer them to something else. Other props to Eitou Academy and Amemiya Taiyou. More props to Kita Ichiban who was so cool but really didn’t get to see the light of day much in the anime (lol).
✿ Some self-admonishment for not bringing out Shindou as much as they wanted to. Inazuma Eleven GO was supposed to bring out drama among Tenma/Tsurugi/Shindou, but it was hard to bring out enough Shindou. It didn’t help matters that Tsurugi and Shindou never have a conversation with just the two of them. Akiyama comments that it was more like Tenma was right in between the two of them all the time. Kamakura comments that things probably would’ve been different if Shindou had also been a first-year. ALSO doesn’t help that even though Shindou makes a reliable captain, he doesn’t seem the type to bring everyone out on the weekends to go hang out somewhere (lol). The directors certainly want to bring out more of Shindou in the future.

Akiyama’s comments about other characters:
✿ Taiyou: A very “Inazuma” character. If he’d had more time, would he have been as popular as Fubuki?
✿ Tsurugi: Is probably the one Tenma wanted to be friends with most. Most people misunderstand him, but Tenma saw through him early on. Because of that, Tsurugi can bring himself to say things to Tenma, including being able to pressure him harshly. Akiyama looks forward to more developments with him and Tenma.
✿ Minamisawa: For a character who didn’t get much time, he was a very frank character. Kaji’s voice for him was also excellent.

Comments from Oohara Takashi (Tsurugi Kyousuke):
✿ Reply to what you’d want to learn from the Endou generation if you were to meet them: Oohara wants to learn Maximum Fire from Gouenji, how to grow up to be someone so off the map like Fudou without other people resenting him, and to make cheap but delicious cooking from Sangoku (even though he’s not one of the Endou generation)

Comments from Yoshino Hiroyuki (Kidou Yuuto):
✿ About Kidou playing in Italy’s pro league and not succeeding the Kidou Financial Group, Yoshino comments that since Kidou’s still in his 20s it’s still safe for him. He probably would succeed the Group later down the line.
✿ “He’s gotta have graduated from the cape!” (in reply to Tano Megumi and Nishigaki Yuka’s comments about the cape while playing for Italy in the previous Prince Animage Winter issue) “The goggles changed to sunglasses… or maybe you’d call these fancy glasses?”
✿ About not wearing goggles, Yoshino comments that Kidou either completely graduated from Kageyama, or that the goggles simply didn’t fit him anymore. But if he had kept wearing goggles, he probably would not be able to completely face up to Kageyama’s departure.
✿ When asked about his impression about Shindou, Yocchin goes off on this nice tangent about Shindou’s impressive technique in the Hakuren match. “Shindou really is good at soccer. Especialy in the Hakuren match, when he got the pass from Nishiki and used Harmonics, his trapping there was really clean. It was a really strong pass, but it fell so cleaning at his feet while he was running. I could really feel watching that moment that Shindou was really skilled at soccer. Watching ball control like that really gets my raises my tension.” As expected of real life soccer freak. XD

Nojima Hirofumi (Ishido Shuuji) interview
✿ First words: “I can finally talk about things (lol)!”
✿ The first time he saw Ishido Shuuji was a year back in autumn, for the game PV where his line was “The time has come.” Around then he was presented with how Gouenji looked 10 years later and it made him go “Ha?!” “Did Gouenji turn into a delinquent?” (lol).
✿ The staff told him to talk like a bad guy for the time being, and he didn’t get what was going on at all at first. When he asked the staff about it, “What happened to Gouenji?” they would just give him vague answers like “Oh, it’s nothing. This is his act as Ishido Shuuji. Gouenji is still Gouenji, facing soccer head on.” After many episodes later, talking it out with Director Akiyama, he came to find out more about Gouenji’s thinking.
✿ He was amused how fans were split halfway about the truth behind Ishido Shuuji, whether he was actually Gouenji or not. XD Or whether it was because fans didn’t want to believe it (lol).
✿ He notes the staff were purposely hiding his eyelashes since they were a special trait for Gouenji, and the episode where he talks with Tenma is when you finally see them, as the wind blows his bangs back.
✿ He thinks Gouenji probably consulted Yuuka for fashion advice when becoming Ishido Shuuji. Seeing Yuuka’s hair was pink now, he thinks she’s probably into Visual Kei rock bands and things like that. And possibly that Toramaru was there to help out with the fashion too.
✿ Gouenji’s “piercings” are actually just clip-ons. Nojima would’ve preferred Ishido Shuuji’s belt to be black instead of green at least.
✿ The interviewer brings up the possibility that it was Senguuji who produced Ishido Shuuji’s fashion instead of Yuuka. Maybe even went to a tanning salon.

Comments from Jou Masako (Gouenji Yuuka):
✿ First impressions of Yuuka: Yuuka’s gaze got sharper, enough to make Jou worry “what happened during those 10 years?!”
✿ First impressions of Gouenji Shuuya to Ishido Shuuji: Thought “who?” at first. But considering his serious attitude, he probably went in that wrong direction (lol). But she thinks the disguise was a success.
✿ Shourinji’s whereabouts: Since Jou also voiced Shourinji, she hopes that 23-year-old Shourinji is almost 2 meters tall and that’s he teaching kids soccer. Building a soccer team with his friends from the neighborhood and all that.

Kase Yasuyuki (Someoka Ryuugo) interview:
✿ “Is it really okay for Someoka to be in ‘Prince Animage’ in the first place? He’s not exactly a ‘prince’ in any way… (lol)”
✿ Also points out Aphrodi’s “Someoka?” without any honorifics, implying that Aphrodi doesn’t really see Someoka as high of a level as himself. XD
✿ When asked a character he particularly likes in Inazuma Eleven GO, Kase answers Fubuki! Because Fubuki is still serious and a hard worker as ever. He’s sad that during Fubuki’s appearances, Kase was only voicing Kuroki and they didn’t get to meet.
✿ Fubuki’s seiyuu (Miyano Mamoru) also complained that he didn’t get to be with Someoka during his appearance. Kase mentions he also wanted to do Wyvern Blizzard again, and of course Dragon Tornado with Gouenji. He recalls the time when Gouenji visited Someoka in the hospital after Fubuki did, but at that time Someoka only talked about how he was worried for Fubuki… which left Nojima Hirofumi saying “Why are you talking about Fubuki when I’M the one who’s here to visit you?” in a mockingly jealous matter (lol).
✿ On other characters – Kuroki Zenzou: He looks like a bad guy on the outside, so Kase used his normal voice on him. That’s when Director Akiyama went “Kase-san, I didn’t know you could talk like that” (lol). Everyone’s so used to hearing his rough talk as Someoka!
✿ On other characters – Shishido: Kase was initially supposed to voice Shishido, while Nara Tooru was supposed to do Someoka. They proceeded to recording the game scenes in those positions, until the staff finally got them to switch around. Once they did it was given the OK. So from there on, whenever they needed to ad lib scenes, Kase would always do something like “Hey, Shishido!” as if Someoka had a special spot for Shishido as an underclassmen (or so Kase would like to think).
✿ On other characters – Tsurugi Kyousuke: Kase had a good time with the personality difference between Oohara and his role as Tsurugi. He notes how Tsurugi has taken up Gouenji’s old position in that within 30 minutes, he only says two or three things. And even then, Oohara would look at the screen the whole time. He’s cheering on Oohara!

Eguchi Takuya (Amemiya Taiyou) interview
✿ Amemiya Taiyou is actually his third character in Inazuma Eleven GO. The first was one of the club entrance test takers, Kotegawa Sakio. The second was Mannouzaka’s Isozaki, who was quite the bad guy (lol).
✿ When he was asked to voice Kotegawa, he didn’t think he’d get called in to voice another character. But even though Isozaki was the captain of his team, all he did was order people around and he didn’t have an Avatar of his own. He thought that was the end of his roles in Inazuma Eleven GO, and then he was grateful to get the role of Amemiya Taiyou. He was especially happy to be able to call out his Avatar, Sun God Apollo.
✿ About Isozaki: Since Mannouzaka went to cheer on Raimon at the latter half, Eguchi wants to see Isozaki meet the team with his new sense of conscious, as well as get along with Tsurugi since they were both Seeds.
✿ About Sata Tosamaru (Arakumo’s GK): Voiced by Tai Yuuki (Kariya Masaki), Eguchi felt a little sorry for him having to shout “Iron Wall Gigadon” so many times but then in the end he didn’t even get to say his technique. And he’s supposedly been the GK who had let the least goals in up until that point, showing just how ridiculously strong Raimon is (lol).

yeah, i thought the same thing…they need more shindou!! And about fubukixsomeokaxgouenji…i found it interesting. And why I didn’t realize Tosamaru was voiced by Yuuki Tai?? Gotta watch the semi-finals again! Ah well, thx for the summaries!